Sappho
The title character, Sappho, was a Greek poet who lived more than five hundred years before the birth of Christianity. She lived on the island of Lesbos and produced lyric poetry only fragments of which survive today. She has, over the ensuing millennia also become an iconic figure of female empowerment and feminist ideals.
Her name also gave rise to a noun, sapphist, with a synonym for a lesbian which, in turn, was inspired by the name of the island that the poet called home. This novel situates Sappho as an Eve-like individual who is the metaphorical mother of all women victimized by patriarchy and misogyny. In addition, she is portrayed as the muse of feminist literature, inspiring countless female writers to rebel against the imposition of male authority.
The opening line of the book asserts the thematic foundation by declaring in the collective voice of the narration that all women taking steps to emancipate themselves from masculine domination are “going to be Sappho.” In this sense, she is much more than a poet or even a symbol of feminism, but the embodiment of freedom and salvation.
Throughout the book, other characters emerge and interact with Sappho, including a goddess, a muse, and several women who represent different aspects of female identity. These women are all in various stages of their own journeys toward liberation and self-actualization, and each provides a unique perspective on the struggles of womanhood. Furthermore, they all serve as examples of how to live authentically and courageously in a society that is often hostile to women's autonomy. By connecting with Sappho and each other, these characters learn to embrace the power of sisterhood and the strength of the feminine spirit. Through the exploration of these characters and their journeys, the novel paints a vibrant and inspiring picture of female empowerment.
Virginia Woolf
If all roads of feminist literature begin with Sappho, then it is equally true that they all must pass through Virginia Woolf on the way to their final destination. Born Virginia Stephen in 1882, her life would literally and symbolically stretch from the repression of the Victorian Era to the dawn of World War II which would result in the first taste of gender equality when millions of women went to jobs outside the home to prove they could do the same work as men.
A major moment in both Woolf’s actual life and this book itself is when she reads a newspaper article asserting that there had been no first-rate literary accomplishments by a female writer since Sappho. Woolf would become one of the most significant figures in the burgeoning literary movement known as Modernism as well as one of the most influential innovators of the technique of stream of consciousness.
Woolf is also one of the iconic symbols of the tragic side of feminism in light of her eventual suicide. A number of external influences believed to have moved Woolf to this act of self-destruction—including mental health issues—can all be seen as inextricably tied to an incontrovertible systemic failure of patriarchal rule.
Her death was mourned by the entire feminist writer's community, and her works continued to be read and appreciated. Woolf's books, essays, and letters have served as a source of inspiration for many modern and contemporary writers, and her literary legacy lives on. Her most famous works, such as "A Room of One's Own" and "Mrs. Dalloway", remain some of the most influential feminist texts, and her ideas about the power of language and storytelling are still relevant today. Woolf's work continues to be studied in literary circles and her legacy is one of the most respected in the feminist canon.
Rina Faccio Pierangeli
Born Rina Faccio in 1876, she would watch her mother commit suicide by defenestration twelve years later. At age fifteen, she changed her name to Reseda so that she could subversive opinions published in the local paper against which her father railed without realizing the writer was his daughter sitting demurely nearby engaged in her needlepoint.
Upon being raped as a teenager, she was forced to marry the man who assaulted her Italian laws. Two years after giving birth to a son, a suicide attempt failed. The marriage itself was as brutal as the proposal. Eventually, she found the courage to leave her husband and in 1902 once again adopted a new name, Sibilla, inspired by the ancient female prophets of Delphi.
In 1906, she produced her first novel titled simply, A Woman. It had been rejected by editors who claimed that it was not interesting enough to find readership since it was only the story of a woman. And in Italy, the story of a woman was basically the story of all women. Of course, they were wrong. The story of most women doesn’t include witnessing the suicide of their mother and desperately trying to fight a legal system enforcing marriage to a rapist and preventing both divorce and maternal rights to their own child.
Rina found solace in writing and produced a total of seven novels and a collection of poetry. Many of her novels portrayed the emotional and physical turmoil of a woman's life in a world where they had few rights. Her legacy has lived on in the fight for gender equality.
